


Don't it Always Seem to Go, That You Don't Know What You Got til it's Gone

by Blunt_Pencil (Alikyros)



Category: Gone Series - Michael Grant
Genre: Gen, lmao im sorry, post hero, this is the bad ending, tw: kinda death but not really, tw: sadness if that counts, writing the ending to hero because michael grant is a coward, you don't actually see anyone die tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 17:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20934068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alikyros/pseuds/Blunt_Pencil
Summary: Cruz backed away from the bin as if it was a bomb about to blow, and although it most certainly wasn’t a bomb, it still held the capacity to end their lives.She glanced around the room; everyone gazing solemnly into the distance. Shade and Malik still sat together, but neither was talking anymore. Edilio rocked back and forth in his chair, fiddling with a toothpick and Dekka sat practically still with her usual stone-cold glare, the still blank sheet of paper was held crushed between her fingers.





	Don't it Always Seem to Go, That You Don't Know What You Got til it's Gone

Cruz backed away from the bin as if it was a bomb about to blow, and although it most certainly wasn’t a bomb, it still held the capacity to end their lives.

She glanced around the room; everyone was just gazing solemnly into the distance. Shade and Malik still sat together, but neither was talking anymore. Edilio rocked back and forth in his chair, fiddling with a toothpick and Dekka sat practically still with her usual stone-cold glare, the still blank sheet of paper was held crushed between her fingers. 

Cruz stopped examining the group for a moment and began to tackle the thoughts that had been festering ever since Malik revealed the truth about their world. It was a simulation, and Cruz might as well be nothing but a swarm of code. She imagined herself as a bundle of ones and zeroes circling around in the shape of a human… was that all she was? What everyone in this room was? If anything, Vector was just a morbid recreation of what they all were.

In some way, she thought the answer to the vote was obvious. How would any of them live on knowing a class of MIT students was observing them? How could they continue knowing they were practically nothing more than a science experiment? She’d never be able to look at Shade or Malik the same, knowing they were the ones who contributed to this mess, although it was pretty much not their faults because they were different people in comparison to those in the real world… Weren’t they?

She considered rambling on in her notebook, which she held tight in her hands, half expecting it to glitch between her fingers. It was all so surreal, all so morbidly fascinating to know that _everything_ was fake… Even though it was as real as it could get. It was fascinating to know that the plug could be pulled on the outside, and everything would just stop… Or would it? Would everything slowly fade out of existence like how a light that has been left on for too long still glows after it’s flicked off? Would it hurt? It was terrifying thinking about the end… Although maybe the votes would favour staying alive… But that was terrifying to imagine too.

Dekka knew what her vote would be; she just couldn’t find the strength to raise her pencil and spell out the word ‘yes’. She was saying _yes_ to the deaths of billions, the destruction of hundreds upon thousands of years of development… Or was she? How old was this world of theirs anyway? For all she knew, it could have been created yesterday with only memories engraved into their minds. It wouldn’t be a loss to the MIT students, hell, they’d probably just create a new, cruel universe. Maybe watch the FAYZ happen all over again, but with different people, different personalities, and see how it turned out. Maybe the FAYZ was just a statistic, a study as to how survivable it would be in the real world. Perhaps their sick minds had created more than one and watched the chaos unfold throughout several mini Perdidos.

Just thinking of that gave Dekka the strength to write her answer, she wasn’t going to provide those scientific pricks with the ticket to watch them for the rest of their lives. Simone and Francis turned away from her paper as she wrote the first letter; they didn’t need to know.  
Dekka folded her paper and turned her head to gaze at Sam and Astrid. Their eyes were filled with unspoken pain, and Dekka could probably never understand the extent as to which it reached.

They’d survived the FAYZ for what? To be ogled at by some university students… To survive the Gaiaplage, Gaia, Drake, the Charmer, the Ranch, Vector… All for what? To be turned off like they were all some kind of machine. Maybe they were just a string of text on a computer screen to those watching, perhaps they were a complex computer program, maybe, maybe, maybe. They could be anything, and they’d never know.

She stood up and walked to the centre of the room, her hand shaking as she dropped the folded paper into the wastebasket. Nobody moved as the atmosphere grew heavier, and everyone waited for somebody to count the results.

Sam felt gutted.

He had thought that deciding the fate of all those on the train was bad enough, but _now_? Now he’s helping to decide whether or not _everyone_ on the planet dies. He wasn’t even sure if death was the right word for it, but he was convinced that it would all end in darkness. No heaven for them, no afterlife… Just nothing. They weren’t truly alive.

Orc entered his mind at that moment. That boy changed throughout the FAYZ, and Sam wondered how he’d fare knowing it wasn’t real and the closest thing they had to a god was an AI with Shade Darby’s mind. Maybe Astrid would have cared back then, but who had the capacity to still have faith after everything they saw in the dome? How would anyone of them fare after learning the truth of their world? They wouldn’t, and that was the harsh reality.

Dekka stayed standing by her seat as Malik strode over to the wastebasket. He turned it over and dumped the ten sheets of folded paper onto the table. Everyone’s faces were grim as he unfolded each sheet, but his face was unchanging as if he knew the outcome before he read it.  
Every sheet of paper he dropped back into the basket sent their minds deeper into oblivion, sent the human race one step further to death.

Malik took one second to examine the room, and he took a deep breath, exhaling slowly, appreciating possibly the last moments of existence.

“The vote has come to the decision that the plug will be pulled…”, and as if that wasn’t enough, he added, “We will be turned off”.

The weight of the atmosphere crashed down as the reality they had already accepted came true. _They would be turned off_. 

Simone’s breath caught in her throat, although she most certainly wasn’t caught off guard, it was the existential terror that she was being faced with. She was a simulation; they were all simulations. It’s like they were all living in a film with MIT as the audience.

_Slow pan of the musky room and cut to the wastebasket._

They had decided their fate… So, does that make them the directors?

_Closeups of the faces of those who sit around the rectangular table. _

To Malik, nobody seemed surprised. There was shock registering on some faces, but on most was just a look of acceptance, grief and maybe even relief. Relief that they would no longer have to carry the safety of the world on their shoulders. Never again would they have to fight another Vector, because there will be nothing. 

Francis buries her head in Malik’s arm as they return to seal their fate.

He stood in the same place, arms crossed, almost remorseful. Either because he felt bad for those he was about to murder, or because he felt bad about destroying his elaborate science project. 

“We want you to turn us off… But wait for five minutes after I leave”. Malik spoke softly in defeat, and immediately wondered if the true forms of those in the control room would be watching… have been watching. How could they? How could they watch as a carbon copy of themselves suffered? 

“Okay. I hope this is a final decision because as soon as I pull the plug, I can’t rerun the simulation. This is terribly inconvenient, I hope you understand”.

Anger surged within Malik’s chest, but he didn’t respond. He only turned and spoke one last sentence.

“I hope you’re proud of what you’ve done”.

**From the purple moleskine**

_This is it. This is the end of everything. _  
We made our votes, we chose our future. We chose to die… To be released into a void of darkness… Maybe not even darkness. Maybe just nothing. It’s hard to imagine, really.   
I’m going to miss this notebook, but then again, I probably won’t have the capacity to miss anything. We decided that Malik will return to the watcher in five minutes - Can we even call it a watcher anymore? - And then ask them to give us another five minutes before they pull the plug.  
It’s a terrifying thought, I just can’t stress that enough. I should be more panicked, but it’s kinda comforting knowing that I’m going down with seven billion other people. Like that song from High School Musical… “We’re all in this together”. Now that’s a morbid twist to an otherwise joyful song.   
I’m pretty peeved that I’ll never get to live out my dream as an author… Although I suppose if we had time, I could publish this as a pretty authentic biography. What would I call it? I don’t have the time to think of that now…  
Malik is about to set off, so I should probably stop writing... 

_I’m so sorry that I have to leave the ending unwritten._

**Author's Note:**

> I did this way too fast, but I finished the book and was slightly mad that we weren't getting a solid ending. Here's the outcome... Hope ya'll enjoy (If anyone reads this, that is haha).


End file.
